Favouite horror game moments

Forever in our nightmares

The horror genre has always been a staple in gaming from Clock Tower to Alone In The Dark. Throughout the years we have had the displeasure of experiencing some of gaming’s most terrifying encounters and here are a few of our top picks.

One of gaming’s best scares can be found on Sony’s original home console and help introduce many players to the true meaning of survival horror, it’s a game everyone should play at least once I am of course speaking of Resident Evil for the PS1. The bit that still sticks with us after all this time is, of course, the first zombie encountered. When Jill or Chris, depending on which hero you decided to embark on the adventure with, first stumbles onto the zombie in the dining room this for the classic was inform the player of the oncoming onslaught of B movie nasties.

Sitting in at the third place spot we have the sequel to Condemned Criminal origins a dark and gritty

FPS that had a heavy focus on up close and personal melee combat set in some of gaming’s most intense atmospheric locations. All of this was intensified tenfold when the sequel was released in 2008, Bloodshot added a focus on philological scars to the already maddening feel of the original and all of this came to boiling point in the games doll factory level. Monolith took everything that was great with the original then added a metric shit tonne of alcohol and paranoia from the start and didn’t let go till the credits rolled.

Our runner we have Project Zero 2 Crimson Butterfly, which in our opinion is one of the best games to grace both the PlayStation 2 and the original breeze block Xbox.

With the camera obscura as your only weapon taking pictures allows you to inflict more damage the closer the enemy. It was a great risk/reward system do you take a picture from far away rapidly trying to take down the ghost or do you wait until it gets right up in your face to deal bonus damage and risk mistiming it and taking damage as well as soiling yourself.

The scene that will always stay with us takes place in the doll makers house and involves two of the most frightening twins in gaming in the smallest bloody corridor ever conceived. Think of the room where you meet pyramid head in Silent Hill 2 but if he had the ability to pass through walls and there were two of him and he could two shot you! These two little girls will have you pulling your hair out in frustration as you attempt to beat them and when you fail to beat them on your first try you think you know where they will be coming from but no, this is no scripted encounter and no set pattern to learn.

Finding its place in the winner’s podium for us, we have one of the best horror series in recent gaming memory, if you erase number three from your mind, Dead Space!

Equal parts The Thing and Alien, Dead Space was a breath of fresh air back in 2008 when true survival horror was lacking and more and more games where going the action horror rote. Visceral Games made two of the most standout horror experiences of the last console generation. Taking on the role of space engineer Isaac Clarke, your job is to unravel a cultist mystery while navigating horrors both real and inside your own head. Whether it’s exploring the dark claustrophobic corridors of the USG Ishimura in Dead Space one or the abandoned space station, The Spire in its sequel, Dead Space is always dripping with atmosphere.

But the standout moment for us comes towards the end of Dead Space 2 where Isaac learns there is something in the Ishimura he needs and low and behold there it is mining vessel USG Ishimura, in the spires docking bay just waiting to be explored once more.

What are some of your most memorable horror moments in gaming let us know in the comments.